The present disclosure relates to image forming apparatuses and in particular to a cooling mechanism of an image forming apparatus.
In one example, an electrographic image forming apparatus causes toner to adhere to an electrostatic latent image formed on an image bearing member. As a result, a visible image (toner image) is formed on the image bearing member. Subsequently, the toner image is transferred to a recording medium, and then heat and pressure is applied to the recording medium by the fixing section to fix the toner image to the recording medium.
The image forming apparatus described above includes a toner container for supplying toner to a developing unit. The toner container is detachably disposed at an upper part of the main body. In addition, the image forming apparatus described above includes a section on which recording mediums each ejected after an image is formed thereon are stacked (the section is hereinafter referred to as an “ejection stacking section”). The ejection stacking section is disposed on the upper surface of the main body. With respect to such an image forming apparatus, the ejection stacking section and the toner container are only a short distance away from each other. As a consequence, heat applied to a recording medium by the fixing section is conducted to the toner container via the ejection stacking section, which often raises the temperature of the toner container high. When the temperature of the toner container is raised high, the toner stored in the toner container tends to degrade.